Procurement Data Insights from the Global Data Barometer: Trends from Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean
This analysis of the Global Data Barometer public procurement thematic cluster was compiled by Camila Salazar, Head of Data Analytics and Learning, Open Contracting Partnership.
One in every three dollars spent by the government is on a contract with a company. Public contracting is the world’s largest marketplace, covering $13 trillion of spending every year. Given its scope and scale, procurement has a vast, untapped potential to address many of the most significant challenges facing our world. Yet, too many governments don’t seem to know what they are buying and selling, for how much, when and with whom they are dealing. And it’s the government’s number one corruption risk.
The sheer scale and number of transactions in public contracting means that the data and documents about contracts will be much, much easier to analyze and track if it is published in an open, accessible, structured, reusable and machine-readable format.
Using data on public procurement effectively can help governments deliver better value for money and increase efficiency, prevent and uncover corruption, strengthen competition, and better track service delivery.
What the Second Edition of the Global Data Barometer Tells Us
All of the 43 countries assessed in this edition of the Global Data Barometer publish some government procurement data online, but only half of the countries (21) release it in machine-readable formats. In just 15 countries, machine-readable data is available as a whole, limiting how the information can be used. All of the countries assessed have laws, policies or regulations requiring the collection and publication of this information in any form.
In Latin America, two out of three countries (15 out of 22 countries or 68%) assessed have machine-readable data available and 11 publish it using the Open Contracting Data Standard (OCDS), a free, non-proprietary open data standard for public contracting. Countries like Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay, and the Dominican Republic in the Caribbean show good data availability combined with a legal framework that specifically supports the collection and publication of procurement data.
In Africa, only one in four countries (6 out of 22 countries, or 27%) assessed have machine-readable data available and publish their data in OCDS: Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, and Uganda. While the region has seen progress in developing stronger legal frameworks that guide data collection requirements, the implementation lags behind, as evident in lower scores for the availability category.
The report finds critical gaps in terms of fields of information published and the stages of the procurement process covered. In most countries, only data from the tender and award stages is available (more than 90%). While 60% publish data on the planning stage, just 6 countries publish some details about contract implementation.
The Global Data Barometer also analyzes which data fields are included in the published data. It finds that most countries have information on the goods and services being procured, the values of the tender, awards or contracts, and the dates of the procedures. However, key data fields that would allow users to connect procurement data to other data sets, such as identifiers to connect data across the different stages of the procurement process (64%) or the names and unique identifiers for companies that are awarded contracts (57%), are only available in half of the countries. Data on actual spending against each contract in the implementation phase is only available for every seventh country (14%).
What’s next: Closing Gaps and Moving from Law to Practice
The countries assessed in Africa and Latin America have made advancements in making public procurement data more accessible and developing regulatory frameworks that mandate its collection and publication.
While there are good examples in both regions on how to disclose procurement data in an open format following international best practices, there are still huge gaps in terms of the disclosure of data from all stages of the contracting process in a machine-readable format.
Countries need to continue to increase the availability of information both in terms of key fields of information disclosed as well as the overall coverage of the data included. Without that information, users will struggle to track how governments are spending and delivering goods, works and public services to citizens.
In Africa, legislation mandating the collection and publication of data is ahead of implementation. There needs to be more investment in implementing e-procurement systems that allow for the digitization of the procurement process and collection of data to comply with the regulations. Where the use of e-procurement systems is mandatory, the data coverage improves.
No country should rely on its current assessment. As data availability and quality continue to improve, the opportunities increase that all actors can use public procurement data to deliver better public services, goods and infrastructure for inclusive, fair and sustainable communities.